The King spoke urgently in her ear as she quickly removed her mask and put down her hood. He asked what she was doing, why she was so calm. They were coming. Vera leaned over Gildas as the sentry stepped up to ask for the toll money, her hair falling just so over her shoulder. Eyes of other soldiers fell on her from just beyond the gate. She did not have to look the guard in the face to know how he thought of her.
"Sir there is an unpleasant man harrassing me, not six horses back. You can smell him from here," Vera said to the sentry. She let the coins in her hand fall so that he could truly feel the weight of them. He looked, in a rather blatant way, around Eragos.
"I don't see how that's my problem," the sentry said.
Though the wind was cold and her eyes close to watering, Vera smiled and slid a precious stone from her fingers to his. The soldiers beyond the entrance were shifting now, laughing and talking loudly. She felt that the very devil was at her back. Would Eragos' sword be drawn before they passed into the valley? Would there be the crunch of people ahead of them and the swords of these guards at their back? Vera did not know. She held her calm, like she would hold an arrow until the right moment. She let the sentry close enough that she could smell his foul breath.
"I hear you do random inspections. I would love to see what it is your guard is capable of."
"We close off the road for a few minutes, holds up a lot of people," the sentry said. He leaned back on his heels and looked back at the men leaning on swords and old shields. Men that should have been patrolling anyway. Vera couldn't help thinking of what would happen to the men under her father had they ever acted in that way. Public humiliation? Physical deterrents? Determining her father's action against stupidity was always difficult, if only because he was creative in his cruelty.
The sentry smiled wide and suddenly the path into the valley was clear.
"For you, I'll see what I can do."
Vera smiled back and thanked him. She knew how these men considered her. But even in pretending, there was a warmth she could not bring to her face. She knew what it was she was doing, she knew that she might have gotten these fools killed. Vera hurried Gildas through the gate with the King right behind her. The guards were flooding in from their break, shields up, blocking the riders behind Eragos and demanding they all halt. Vera could hear the door being let down as her party rode through.
At the sight of relatively clear road, she quickened Gildas' pace considerably. Moving her party forward was her goal. Vera did not know how much time she bought. Finally she looked back toward the gate, never slowing Gildas, her hair whipping across her cheeks and making them red. She needed to see...to see if it was worth the cost of jewels and blood.
Never abandon the weak. It was precisely what she'd just done.